Illustration depicting French soldiers defeating German troops with the aid of an angel during the First Battle of the Marne, September 1914.

Illustration depicting French soldiers defeating German troops with the aid of an angel during the First Battle of the Marne, September 1914.

Today 108 years ago, on September 5, 1914, the First Battle of the Marne began, one of the most decisive battles of the First World War.

From August 4 to September 4, 1914, utilizing their Schlieffen Plan, the Germans pushed the Belgian, French and British forces back along the whole front, resulting in an Allied retreat to the Marne river just 16 km north of Paris.

From the Marne, the French decided to counterattack the German forces across the Ourq river towards Château Thierry in an attempt to penetrate a gap between the German 1st and 2nd Armies.

On September 5, 1914, the French 6th Army attacked the German 1st Army across the Ourq, as bloody but inconclusive battle between 5 French Armies and 5 German Armies occurred along a 225 km frontline, with a whopping 1.9 million soldiers participating in total.

German artillery inflicted heavy casualties on the French forces on the Ourq, who were forced to retreat. The fighting across the whole front was among the bloodiest of the entire First World War. 

It was at this point, on September 6, 1914, that French General Gallieni ordered all taxis in Paris, around 600, to kick out their passengers and drive towards a place where French soldiers were waiting to get sent to the front, to which the taxis then drove them.

Although only around 6,000 French soldiers were driven, the impact on morale amongst Parisians was significant. The famous event was called the "Taxis of the Marne".

As the French 6th Army had attacked the Germans on the western end of the front, General von Kluck of the German 1st Army thought the rest of the Allied armies were there as well. The 1st Army was moved westwards in a pursuit of the retreating French 6th Army.

But this left a 50 km gap between the German 1st and 2nd Armies, the latter fighting French forces on the eastern end of the front.

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Using aerial reconnaissance to discover this gap, the British Expeditionary Force and the French 5th Army then attacked through this gap, completely infiltrating the German lines.

As the British and French forces threatened to cut off and encircle the rest of the German forces along the Marne, the Germans were forced to retreat on September 10, famously resulting in German Chief-of-Staff Helmuth von Moltke having a nervous breakdown and eventually resigning on September 14.

For the Allies, the First Battle of the Marne was called the "Miracle of the Marne", as previously the Germans had advanced relentlessly and were seemingly close to defeating France altogether with the capture of Paris. 

The Germans retreated up to 90 km northwards, reaching the Aisne river on September 13, where they dug trenches and faced the British in the First Battle of the Aisne - marking the beginning of trench warfare on the Western Front.

In the First Battle of the Marne, the French suffered some 218,000 - 250,000 casualties of whom 18,000 - 21,000 were killed and a staggering 84,000 went missing, most presumably dead. 

The Germans suffered around 250,000 casualties themselves of whom 67,700 were killed. Another estimate states 43,000 deaths and 40,000 missing. The British suffered some 13,000 casualties, of whom 1,700 died.

This brings the total to some 500,000 casualties within just a week. As a result, no future battle on the Western Front would average so many casualties a day in the First World War.